MIDDLEBORO – A driver spewing sparks from a bare rim as he fled an accident scene, left a miles-long trail of brush fires along Route 44 and other roads after crashing into a landscape trailer and losing a tire in Plympton on Wednesday.

Plympton police Sgt. Brian Cranshaw said witnesses saw a white pickup truck sideswipe a trailer that was parked on the side of Prospect Street just after 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Cranshaw said the driver fled, leaving behind $5,000 in damage and his right front tire. Three cruisers picked up the trail from a deep groove the rim left in the road.

Sparks flying from the now-bare rim started several fires along the side of the back roads between Plympton and Middleboro.

Cranshaw said the trail went cold; there were no more grooves in the road.

But police followed the fires.

Cranshaw said the driver had gotten onto Route 44 and left a string of fires in Middleboro.

On a hunch, Cranshaw sent officers into Nemasket Hill Cemetery off Route 44 in Middleboro and found the driver had ditched the truck. He said the pickup was backed in at the rear of the cemetery.

Most of the fires along Route 44 were small, but Middleboro Fire Chief Lance Benjamino said that one near the KOA Campground was sizable.

Benjamino said firefighters scrambled to douse the blaze before it made its way to the busy campground.

Benjamino said 10 fires burned along a 4-mile stretch of Route 44. At 5 p.m. more than a dozen firefighters from Middleboro, Plympton, Raynham and Lakeville had extinguished the last of the roadside fires.

Cranshaw said state police, Plymouth County Bureau of Criminal Investigation officers and Middleboro police joined in the search.

Cranshaw said a state police dog, along with Middleboro officer Jerry J. Donahue and his dog, Phaellan, started tracking the driver within 10 minutes of the truck being ditched, but they were unable to find him.

Cranshaw said the pickup truck is owned by L.D.D. Leasing Trust with a post office box in Hanson.

“We have a suspect,” Cranshaw said, but declined to release the name. The officer expects to file charges within 24 hours.